№ 34: Tetris Plus (1995, Jaleco) — Arcade Apocalypse Ochimonogatari

let us doom the professor to a slow death among others' riches. plus: nobody has two wolves, we take a ska adventure, and we learn about a special feature in microsoft flight sim. streamed 9/13

as we head backwards into the past, i'm increasingly taken with how tetris plus and its sequel really nailed the "tetris, but" genre. color matching stackers are exploding in creativity, but the closed design of tetris hasn't lead to a longevity of tetris-likes. we'll discuss that phenomenon later once we get to the "tetris-like" boom of the late 90s and early 80s. but this half-decade hasn't brought us a lot of them -- the closest might be Cleopatra Fortune, honestly. (TGM is doing its own thing.) the Tetris Plus puzzle mode is genuinely brilliant. i'd be repeating my Tetris Plus 2 review to say more, so in short: pleasant, meaningfully distinct, very cute, rng-game-as-in-party-mode not rng-game-as-in-unfair, shame about the grave robbing but we will entomb them for their sins. 8.0

art of me by Minasheep! (  / lammyheaven  ,   / minasheep  ) next up is № 35: Tokimeki Memorial Taisen Puzzle-dama (1995, Konami). i hope you'll join us!